Watching Tierney and Skye now, taking their time over saying goodbye at the gates, one so exquisitely blonde, the other so stormily dark, Lainey could only feel glad that this was an all-girls’ school. Heaven only knew what kind of havoc they’d wreak on boys of their age – actually any age – were they around them all the time. She couldn’t remember her and Stacy being anywhere near as sophisticated when they were sixteen, but maybe that was because she didn’t want to.
‘Hey, Mum,’ Tierney chirruped as she slipped into the car, her long bare legs seeming to take a while to come in after her. ‘How’s things?’
‘Everything’s fine,’ Lainey told her, giving Skye a wave as she began reversing out of her space. ‘How did the maths exam go today?’
‘Yeah, it was cool,’ Tierney replied, tossing her hair over one shoulder as she studied her mobile. ‘GCSEs are so peak. I don’t know why we’re bothering when everyone knows they’re a waste of time.’
‘Not if you want to go on to do As. So you think you did well?’
Tierney shrugged. ‘I guess so. I answered everything anyway. Oh, by the way, Skye’s invited me to her place the week after exams are over. It’ll be so cool, hanging out in London with her and her friends. They’re completely amazing, and it’s so dead around here.’
‘I think we need to discuss that before you accept,’ Lainey cautioned. ‘We’ve never actually met her family . . .’
‘Oh Mum, lighten up, will you? Her rents are fantastic, just like you and Dad, but a bit stricter, which should make you happy. And there’s no need to have a convo about everything I do. I’m going to be sixteen by then . . .’
‘I’m aware of that and I’d like to know what you want to do for your birthday. Dad’s agreed to a party . . .’
‘Oh God, I so don’t want one. There’s no one around here to invite for a start.’
‘Tierney, that’s ridiculous. You’ve got dozens of friends in the area. What about Maudie?’
‘Oh, don’t start going on about her again. I’m still friends with her, all right? I’m just not hanging out with her quite so much. It’s not a problem, it just happens, we move on, OK?’
‘But I think she misses you . . .’
‘
Mu-um!
’
‘All right, all right. I’m just saying, you have lots of friends around here who you’ve known all your life, and whose sixteenths you’ve been to . . .’
‘Which doesn’t mean I have to have one too. I swear, I really don’t want to spend my birthday with them. They’re all so juvenile, like they really need to get out more, and I know you, you’ll only try to join in with all your mum dancing and it is sooo embarrassing.’
Lainey had to laugh, mainly because she could see Tierney was trying hard not to. ‘Which exams do you have tomorrow?’ she asked.
Tierney was too busy texting to respond. ‘Oh my God, that is so cool!’ she suddenly cried.
Lainey waited for enlightenment, but unsurprisingly none came so she simply carried on driving, heading into town, while going over in her mind what further arrangements she needed to make for Saturday. If Nadia was coming without her husband they were down to eleven, unless she could persuade Stacy to change her mind and bring the new man, but then they’d be thirteen and she wasn’t sure she was comfortable with that.
‘When’s Dad back?’ Tierney asked, as they drove into the supermarket car park.
‘Saturday morning, or Friday evening if he can get away sooner. Why?’
Tierney shrugged. She was texting again. ‘You’re kind of unusual, you two,’ she commented, seeming hardly to connect with her words, ‘you know, still being together when everyone else’s parents are split up.’
‘Not
everyone’s
,’ Lainey countered.
‘Well, just about. Oh God, it would be a total nightmare if you two broke up. I’d so hate it. I wouldn’t know who to live with, because I love you both, and it would be the same for Zav . . .’
‘Shall we change the subject?’ Lainey cut in, knowing from experience how easily Tierney’s teenage hormones could get her all wound up over nothing.
‘I’m just saying, that’s all. Loads of women have got the hots for Dad, which makes them totally sad, of course, but hey, someone has to be. Did I tell you, Mrs Kellaway, the English teacher, is mega struck on him? She’s always asking about him, which kind of freaks me out. I mean, she’s so
old
and like weird in the way she gets all steamed up over poems and stuff.’
‘She’s not that old,’ Lainey objected, refraining from pointing out that Pamela Kellaway was probably still in her forties, while Tom was going to be fifty-one at the end of the year.
‘Whatever,’ Tierney murmured, going back to her phone.
‘Are you coming?’ Lainey asked, turning off the engine.
‘No. I’ll wait here and make sure no one offs the car.’
Rolling her eyes, Lainey took herself into the store, checking her own phone on the way and grabbing a hand basket to collect up the few items she needed.
Ten minutes later she was opening the back of the estate to drop in the groceries when she heard Tierney say, ‘Shit, got to go.’
Waiting until she was in the driver’s seat and starting the engine, Lainey said, ‘Who was that?’
Tierney sighed. ‘Do you really need to know?’
Lainey cast her a sideways look and turned in her seat to reverse out of the space.
‘Talking about Dad,’ Tierney drawled, as though the conversation hadn’t been broken, ‘do you reckon he was ever a spy himself? I mean, I know he says Ian Fleming based James Bond on him and all that rubbish – he’s too young for one thing, and definitely not cool enough for another. But everyone says how realistic his books are, and when Mrs Kellaway asked if he ever used to work for MI5 . . . Well, he did once, didn’t he?’
‘You know he did, but it was a long time ago, just after he left uni.’
‘He’s still got loads of contacts though, you know, people he sees clandestinely, or who tip him off about stuff. I wonder if he had a codename when he was active, and if he did, what it was.’
Amused by the intrigue, Lainey said, ‘What’s brought this on? You’ve never seemed particularly interested before.’
‘Nothing,’ Tierney replied airily. ‘I just thought, wouldn’t it be cool if he was still a spy?’
Lainey had to laugh.
Tierney did too, and with a sudden gasp of what sounded like glee she went back to her phone, leaving Lainey to reflect on how following her logic these days was about as easy as deciphering her texts (not that Lainey ever snooped, well, maybe she might steal a glance or two if Tierney wasn’t aware she was looking, much good it ever did her), or listening to her gabbing away to Skye on the phone.
Still, what really mattered, as Tom often reminded her, was that whatever might be going on in Tierney’s overactive brain, she was at home most nights with them, and was apparently doing well at school. As for boys, true she was always talking about them, or drooling over some movie star or boy band, but apart from a couple of dates with her friends’ brothers during the past year, she’d hadn’t yet become involved in what might be termed a more serious relationship. Nor, to Lainey’s relief, had she yet asked to go on the pill, unlike a few of the girls she’d grown up with whose mothers had given in rather than have to deal with the alternative.
Tierney would ask, wouldn’t she, and not just go ahead and get a prescription without her mother knowing? Of course she would; Lainey had always made it perfectly clear that Tierney could come to her with anything, and it wasn’t as if they didn’t have frank conversations about sex, because they often did.
Lainey didn’t even want to contemplate what Tom would say if he thought his precious daughter might be using contraceptives. He wasn’t any too thrilled by the amount of girls Max was bringing back to the annexe either, though mainly because of the example he was setting for his younger sister and brother. Lainey had to leave that to Tom to handle, while she did her best with Tierney. As for Zav, since he was mercifully still too young to have developed an attitude, or spots, or sexually charged hormones, he was an absolute dream to live with when compared to the other two.
‘So, like when you were my age,’ Tierney said, clicking off the phone again, ‘were you already into older men, or was it just when you met Dad?’
Both amused and vaguely curious as to why she was asking, Lainey said, ‘Dad was my first boyfriend, so I didn’t really know the difference.’
‘That is so not true,’ Tierney cried. ‘You were nineteen when you two met, so there had to have been someone before that.’
‘If there was, I can’t remember his name now.’
Tierney scoffed. ‘Yeah, right. Was it like amazing, when you and Dad first met? Did you think . . . I mean, did you know right away that he was the one?’
Remembering just how electrifying the occasion had been (though no way in the world was she going to tell Tierney that her parents had locked themselves in a conference room and gone for it, while the rest of the publishing team were waiting for them to join a meeting on the next floor), Lainey said, ‘I’m not sure I knew he was the right one, exactly, but I definitely fell for him.’
Tierney was looking thoughtful. ‘So do you think he’d have married you if you hadn’t got pregnant?’ she asked bluntly.
Lainey’s heart caught on the words. They hadn’t gone this far into her and Tom’s past before, so there was a chance Tierney didn’t know how sensitive this unexplored area was. ‘I’m not sure,’ she replied truthfully. ‘He says he would have, but it’s all a bit academic now, isn’t it, because he did marry me and now here we are and you really ought to be asking him these questions, not me.’
‘Yeah, and like he’s going to answer them. Anyway, him being older and married and everything didn’t really make a difference?’
Frowning, Lainey said, ‘I wouldn’t exactly put it like that. Why are you so interested all of a sudden?’
‘No reason. Just making conversation. What were Granny and Grandpa like when you and Dad got together? Did they go ballistic about him being married and you being up the duff?’
Knowing she’d never forget how furious her mother had been, or the names she’d called her, Lainey said, ‘You have to remember Granny was Catholic, so it was all pretty sinful as far as she was concerned. Not that I’m saying it wasn’t wrong, because obviously it was, but it was harder for her to accept than it was for Grandpa.’
Tierney smiled. ‘Grandpa’s such a sweetheart, isn’t he? I bet he was dead good-looking when he was young.’
‘You’ve seen pictures, so you know he was.’
‘How did he and Granny meet?’ She swung round suddenly. ‘Just a minute, she had you before she was married, so it was a bit much giving you a hard time when you did the same thing with me.’
Having thought so herself at the time, Lainey said, ‘For all you know she was married to my real dad.’
Tierney frowned. ‘Was she?’
‘I don’t know. She’d never tell me anything about him.’
‘Did Grandpa know him?’
‘No. He met her here, in England, after she’d left Italy. She was a waitress in a restaurant he used to go to – and kept going to, and kept going to until she agreed to go out with him.’
Tierney smiled. ‘I can imagine him being a romantic, can’t you? Oh my God, is that Max coming towards us in his Fiesta? Yes, it is. Flash him down, Mum, I need to speak to him and he’s not answering his phone.’
Lainey had barely pulled to the side of the road before Tierney had leapt out and run over to an impatient-looking Max, who’d swerved to a halt the other side of the country lane.
Since she couldn’t hear what they were saying, and wasn’t particularly interested either, Lainey quickly checked her emails in case something important had come in.
Looking like I could be back on Friday evening
Tom had written.
Pleased by the prospect of his early return, she sent him a quick reply saying,
That’s great. We all miss you, especially me. Love you. Xxx
Though she rarely failed to sign off romantically, he almost never did, which she was well used to by now, though she wouldn’t have minded if he made an exception once in a while.
‘Do you love me?’ she asked him from time to time.
‘You know I do.’
‘Then say it.’
‘I love you. OK?’
Just like that, as if it were a duty, or a small ordeal that had to be endured. Yet when they made love, or simply spent time together, just the two of them, she never got a sense of him wanting to be elsewhere. Occasionally she’d feel his eyes on her while she was cooking, or working at her desk, and when she looked up he’d smile in a way that made her feel their connection as deeply as if it was something she could lose herself in. They were happy, she kept reminding herself, as close as it was possible for a couple to be, so why could she never quite shake the feeling that he was holding something back?
Because she was a mess of insecurities, that was why.
‘OK, cool,’ Tierney declared, getting back in the car.
‘Did Max say where he was going?’ Lainey asked, as she watched him drive on without glancing her way. Apparently he was still mad with her over something.
‘No, but probably to Richmond’s or Harry’s. Oh my God, I forgot to take my phone. Did it ring while I was gone?’
‘If it had I’d have answered it,’ Lainey told her, pulling back on to the road.
‘Well don’t, OK? Don’t
ever
answer my phone.’
Lainey’s eyebrows rose.
Tierney kept her head down, checking her call log.
After a while, Lainey said, ‘Are you revising tonight? Which exam do you have tomorrow?’
‘RI, ugh! Like such a waste of time.’
‘Good job Granny can’t hear you, she’d be very upset to think you’re not taking religious studies seriously.’
‘Did you, when you were my age?’
‘Of course.’
‘Yeah, right.’
‘I did.’
‘Mum, you are such a bad liar. Anyway, even Granny never used to go to church until she got sick.’
This was true, and Lainey still wasn’t sure that her mother had got any real comfort from her return to God. However, by then the two of them had become closer than they’d ever been, which had certainly provided some comfort for Lainey.
Tierney’s attention had returned to her texts and remained there until after Lainey had taken a call from the caterers. ‘So what’s the big deal on Saturday?’ Tierney asked, as they pulled up outside the house. ‘Is it someone’s birthday, or something?’